Life, Laughs, Toddlers and Tea

Arranging Love (part 5): The Boy

The boy, understandably, was nervous but hoped to God it didn’t show. The last thing he needed was to make a bad first impression, and as far as first impressions went, the first-meeting-with-possible-future-wife situation was pretty much the most important first impression in his life so far.

He nodded and smiled at the girl’s dad, willing himself to focus on the conversation instead of worrying.

He was still smiling when he heard the door open on the other end of the room and the rise in conversation that followed.

He looked up, and there she was.

Smiling self-consciously, nervously adjusting her dupatta, the girl took a few hesitant steps into the room before looking up.

Their eyes met, and for a split second the rest of the world went slightly out of focus.

The girl blinked, breaking the spell, and the boy quickly looked away, not wanting to get caught starring at her. From the corner of his eye he could see the girl take a seat next to his mother, on the other side of the room and out of his line of vision.

Great. So much for meeting the girl. Now how was he supposed to look at her without twisting his head around and being super obvious?

Damn it.

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“Damn it,” the girl thought as she nodded along to the conversation, “I can’t see him from here at all!”

She had only caught a glimpse of the boy when their eyes had met across the room and though it had been an intense moment, she had barely had time to take him in properly.

She was still trying to figure out how to steal another look at the boy when she heard someone calling her name.

“N why don’t you come here for a while? We haven’t gotten to talk to you at all!”

It was the boy’s brother, who just happened to be sitting right next to the boy himself.

Panicking, not sure what the proper response should be, the girl did the only thing she could do: she looked at her mom for help. The girl’s mother smiled and nodded.

“Go ahead.”

The room wasn’t an exceptionally large one, but it felt like it took forever to walk across it to the small enclave of men on the other end. Her heartbeat thumped in her ears, almost deafening.

Relieved that she managed to make it across the room without tripping over her own feet, the girl sat down next to her father, smack dab in front of the boy.

Breath in. Breath out. Relax. Look up.To be continued…

Over the years since I’ve been blogging I’ve been asked more than once how I met my husband, how arranged marriages work. Each marriage, arranged or not, comes about differently and I can’t speak for them all, but this is my story.

I’m telling this story in order so if you missed it, here’s part 1. If you want to know what happens next, here is Part 6!

16 thoughts on “Arranging Love (part 5): The Boy”

I could have written more but I honestly didn’t have time so it was either end it here and publish or wait another week for the installment 😁 It’s hard to write about that day in one blogpost! So much happened 😉